Threaded View

I have been thinking about the suggestion to count lips/flutzs as lutzs/flips, and I am now opposed to it because it occurs to me that it would really discourage skaters from including both jumps into a program and thus discourage them from trying to master both. If such a rule were in place, rather than risk zayaking themselves, skaters would probably just choose to include two flips or two lutzs, whichever then are good at, and then try and fill their jump passes with other types of jumps. Indeed, even if a skater is usually good at doing both lutz and flip in practice, it would still make attempting both jumps in a program risky, because the skater could not know with certainty that they have lipped or flutzed their third and fourth flip+lutz jump attempts.

Of course, in the case of ladies, the flip side would be that such a rule may encourage more female skaters to try and master a triple-axel, as an under-rotated triple-axel would be worth more than a zayak jump worth zero.